Oregon Brewers Festival Day 2

Here are more reviews and highlights of beers I tasted at OBF.

Hopworks Organic NW IPA: This is the new brewery from Christian Ettinger who was the former head brewer at Laurelwood. This beer has grapefruit and citrus hop aromas in the nose. The hop aromas are very intense. There’s a good malt backbone in the beer, which gives it enough body to stand up to the hopping. There’s a moderately strong hop bite in the finish. It’s a quintessential NW style IPA but is still balanced.

Bison Chocolate Stout: One of the few stouts at the festival this year. The aroma is filled with cocoa and roasted malt notes. It’s fairly big on the palate with a distinct roast malt sharpness and bite that a good stout should have. Finishes fairly dry and roasty. The hops are most noticeable in the finish.

Victory Prima Pils: This is still one of my favorite American brewed pilsners. It’s got great sweet malt body but has a spicy floral hop bite that makes it clean and crisp. A delightful beer that’s always a pleasure to drink when it’s fresh.

BJ’s C’est Bon Blonde: The brewers are BJ’s are big Belgian fans and I was happy to see that they had done a Belgian for the festival. This is a Belgian Blonde at about 6% alcohol, so it has strength and flavor but isn’t over the top. The aroma is filled with sweet malt, honey and candy notes. The hops are very restrained and play a supporting role. There’s a slight spice note from the yeast as well. It’s fairly dry, but the sweet honey notes tend to hide that a little bit. A nice change from all of the IPA’s this year.

Four + Wildfire Organic Extra Pale Ale: Four + is a new brewery to me but if this beer is any indication of their quality, I’d love to taste more. This beer was a real surprise to me. It’s a lighter colored pale that has great aroma and flavor and has enough toffee malt flavors underlying to make it incredibly well balanced. This is another beer that’s meant for drinking several pints with friends. An easy drinking, balanced, refreshing beer.

Pelican Heiferweizen: I almost missed this beer because I assume it was a German Weizen from the name, but actually it’s another Belgian wit beer. The brewers at Pelican are incredibly talented and this beer shows their mastery of different styles. This is the best wit that I’ve tasted at the Festival this tear (although the Old Market is still very good). The nose has hints of orange and some subtle spice notes. The wit yeast adds a distinctive tart note to the nose. There’re notes of lemon and citrus. It’s light bodied, as a great wit should be, and it finishes dry and crisp. The spices are present but were added using a light hand so that they don’t overwhelm the beer. A terrific beer.

Ram Brewing Double Exposure IPA: Deep caramel notes with fruity, citrus notes in the nose. There’s also a little bit of fruitiness from the ale yeast. The alcohol in this one is actually fairly noticeable, and it has definite alcohol warmth in the finish. It has more body than many double IPAs and finishes a little sweeter than some. The alcohol warmth makes it a little unbalanced to me. It’s likely a beer that would be far better with food to help reign in the alcohol.

Russian River Brewing Pliny the Elder: Still my favorite double IPA. It has a huge hops nose from extensive dry hopping. The beer has no finish hops in the kettle (just several additions of bittering hops) and the hop aroma all comes from the dry hopping. The nose is big and bold, and filled with citrus, grapefruit, and a hint of pine. The underlying malt has some toffee and caramel notes, but this is a beer about the hops. It’s well balanced and the considerable alcohol content isn’t really that noticeable. It’s still a classic.

Bear Republic Racer X Double IPA: Good caramel malt notes and a huge American hop aroma. The hops seem to be some of the old school, slightly coarser varieties, but this is a beer that delivers big hop and malt flavors like a double IPA should. The malt flavors last well into the finish to balance the considerable hop bite.

Golden Valley Quercus Red Thistle: This is a Pinot Noir barrel aged version of their popular Red Thistle red ale. I’m a big fan of Red Thistle and initially avoided this beer because I’m not always a fan of oak aged beers. I tired it on the recommendation of a friend and I’m glad that I did. It has a winey nose with distinct red berry notes. The oak is present but doesn’t overwhelm the beer, but instead adds an interesting vanilla note to the palate and finish. The underlying beer is only 5.8% alcohol and could easily have been overwhelmed if they had let it sit in oak too long. It’s actually well balanced and very good, particularly considering that this is a style I normally don’t appreciate.

Deschutes 19th Anniversary Belgian Golden Ale: I had tried this beer in bottles and felt it was a little too sweet for the style, but decided to try it again on draft at the festival. My initial reactions were confirmed. This is a big full bodied beer with a spicy, slightly candied or honeyed note, and a little bit of orange. I love the aroma and flavors, but it finishes a little too sweet for me. I like my Belgian Goldens drier and crisper. This finishes at a terminal gravity of 1.018, and I think it would be a real winner if it got down to something more like 1.012 or even 1.014. But if you like bigger Belgian styles, it’s still worth sampling because it has a lot going for it.

Silver City Whoop Pass Double IPA: I tried this last year and remember being a little under whelmed but this year it struck me as a much more interesting beer. It’s got a distinct American hop nose filled with citrus, floral, and slightly herbal notes. There’s a big caramel and toffee malt note underlying the hops that lends a little sweetness to balance all those hops. The finish has a nice hop bite but doesn’t go over board.

Snipes Mountain IPA: This one has a big grapefruit citrus hop nose with a slight grassy note. It’s actually fairly dry, but has the underlying malt to balance the hops. The balance is definitely towards the hops, but it does come across as balanced and very drinkable. Another quintessential NW style IPA.

Rogue Imperial Porter: Lots of cocoa, dark chocolate, dark roasted malt and a little vanilla in the aroma. The palate is big, rich and smooth, with good balance. Distinctly different after several IPAs. Porter is a beer of balance and finesse, and although this is an Imperial Porter that clocks in at 7.5% alcohol, it has that balance and finesse.

Mad River Steelhead Double IPA: Different from most of the double IPAs here. This beer has bigger body and a much richer malt flavor than the others. It has the hops to balance the malt, and is big and rich tasting. There isn’t the hop presence that you normally look for in a double IPA, so hard core hop heads may dismiss this beer, but the malt backbone is deep, rich and satisfying. More like a strong ale than a double IPA, but very good and complex and worth sampling.

Max’s Fanno Creek Farmer’s Daughter: This is Max’s golden saison style beer. Like a true Belgian beer it doesn’t really fit either style and is sort of its own style. It’s a slightly hazy golden color with considerable spice and fruitiness from the Chouffe yeast strain that he uses. It’s a long time favorite of mine and has become one of his flagships beers. There’s a slight note of spice and citrus in the finish as well. Finishes fairly dry for a beer of this strength.

Boundary Bay Galena Single Hop Pale Ale: This beer had severe amounts of diacetyl and was borderline undrinkable. It’s ashamed because they normally produce wonderful beers. I’m not sure if I had a taste from a bad keg or perhaps a dirty tap, but this was one of the few disappointments from an otherwise top notch brewery. I’d love to hear from someone else that it was just a bad keg and that the entire batch didn’t have the diacetyl problem.

I did go back and re-taste the Trumer pils to see if it’s diacetyl problems were a fluke. (Actually a friend took the bullet for me and tried it instead.) Sorry to say it was the same. Not sure what happened on this one, but I will still re-taste it in the future since it normally highly recommended by people whose palates I trust.

I will likely skip the festival today and instead cook something here to help clear my gut of two days of beer tasting and deep fried foods. I’ll be down there on Sunday to pour beer and then will taste a few more of the remaining ones on my list.